No, Kenyan Govt Hasn’t Deployed Maasai Tribe to Implement Curfew

The video has been made by a YouTube user who is based out of Kenya for the purpose of entertainment and awareness.

(Photo: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

CLAIM

As the coronavirus pandemic has pushed countries across the world into lockdown, a video is being massively shared on various social media platforms; it shows a man dressed in a tribal attire using a whip to disperse people from crowded areas.

This video is being circulated with a claim that the Kenyan government has deployed the Massai tribe for the curfew “after the police failed to implement” it.

The video has been shared by a verified Twitter user called 'Purijagan’ with his 2.6 million followers with the same claim. At the time of writing the story, the video had garnered 51,900 views.

An archived version of the tweet can be found here.(Source: Twitter)

An archived version of the tweet can be found here.(Source: Twitter)

The story is also being massively shared on Facebook with the same claim.

Screenshot of the viral post.(Source: Facebook)

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TRUE OR FALSE?

The video has been shared with a misleading caption. The Kenyan government hasn’t deployed the Maasai tribe to make people follow the curfew rules. In fact, this video has been made by a YouTube user who is based out of Kenya. As per the description available on the video, it has been made for the purpose of entertainment.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

The video which is being shared has a very prominent watermark on top which reads ‘MBUZISELLER’. We tried looking with the same keywords on YouTube and came across a longer version of the video which was uploaded on 2 April.

We then noticed the caption which was written partially in Swahili and partially in English. According to this description, the video was “comedy”.

Further, Mbuzi Seller had engaged with people in the comment section of the video where he suggested that he was creating awareness about social distancing. We also found other similar videos with the same person, dressed in the same attire, on the YouTube channel.

We also didn’t come across any media reports which suggested that the Kenyan government had deployed the Maasai tribe to ensure that people follow social distancing.

Evidently, a video that has been created for entertainment and awareness purposes is being shared out of context.

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